Ľudová banka, Námestovo

Ľudová banka, účastinný spolok (People’s Bank, joint-stock company), Námestovo, held its inaugural general meeting on 7 July 1902. The company defined its business as taking deposits and providing loans backed by promissory notes and mortgages to the inhabitants of the upper Orava region. The driving force behind the bank’s establishment and its 38 years of operation was František Skyčák. The share capital amounting to 100,000 Austro-Hungarian crowns (K) was based on one thousand shares with a nominal value of K 100. The company’s executive bodies were the general meeting, the administration, the executive committee and the supervisory committee. The administrative board consisted of 10 to 17 members elected for three years. František Skyčák was its chairman for many years. The control function was performed by the supervisory committee, which was chaired by Aurel Styk.

In the bank’s early years, its management focussed on taking deposits and providing favourable loans, thereby gradually building a broad client base. This prudent financial policy lasted until the end of the First World War and brought the bank steady growth in profits and the reputation of a sound financial institution. Due to low interest in investment, the bank began to generate financial surpluses which it deposited in other Slovak banks. As the bank increased its deposits and investments, it also increased its share capital by issuing new shares. It first rose to K 200,000 in 1909 and then to K 500,000 at the start of 1918.

It invested a part of its funds in the purchase of securities. The bank changed direction after the establishment of the first Czechoslovak Republic, giving up its previous commercial strategy and making major investments in real estate and industrial enterprises. Soon after the end of the First World War it purchased a large agricultural holding at Kamenná Poruba near Rajec. In 1919 it participated actively in the establishment of an agriculture-focussed bank Slovenská roľnícka banka, Košice, and a wood-processing company Drevársky spolok, Bratislava, by underwriting shares. It gradually acquired a share in the Žilina cellulose works and it had a controlling share in the brewery at Bytča. Other activities included loans to food companies, the Orava county administration, municipalities in the area and even Polish farmers. It participated in the financing of farming colonies and the electrification of the town of Námestovo, but its main interest was processing and trading in wood. It granted loans to a forestry and wood-processing firm Slovenská lesná a drevopriemyselná účastinná spoločnosť, Žilina, and helped to establish Hornooravská priemyselná účastinná spoločnosť, which operated steam-powered sawmills and traded in wood in upper Orava.

Ľudová banka, Námestovo, continued in operation until 1939, when it was obliged to merge with Ľudová banka, Ružomberok, by Note No. 18842/39-VI./16/5 of the Ministry of Finance of 6 December 1939.

The most informative of the bank’s surviving archival documents are the minutes of meetings of the administrative board, correspondence and merger resolutions. This archival fonds can be useful in research on the history of banking in Slovakia focussing on the economic activities of the Catholic wing of the Slovak political spectrum. It can also be used to trace the bank’s role in financing industry and steps in the consolidation of the Slovak banking sector. The bank’s archival documents were initially kept in the corporate archives of Štátna banka československá (State Bank of Czechoslovakia) in Ružomberok, where they were sorted in 1968 and a temporary inventory was made. In 1993, the fonds was transferred to the Archives of Národná banka Slovenska in Bratislava, where the inventory was revised in 2016.